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Heather Wastie writes poems, songs & monologues. This blog began with her oral history project with people who worked in the carpet industry in Kidderminster. Her carpet industry related pieces appear on this blog and in her book http://blackpear.net/authors-and-books/heather-wastie/

BANANAS FROM THE HEART
CD £5.00 + £1.50 p&p
Available directly from me in person or by post using PayPal

Bananas from the heart
37 Hollybush Street
Black Country poetry
Apostrophes
At knife point in the butcher’s
Fooling the Guinness Book of Records
Concert etiquette
The Page-Turner’s Dilemma
Until I saw your foot
In memoriam gigam
Singer on the line
Catherine, Meg & Hannah
Hallowe’en NightmareThere were slugs
I’m a pub
Pure and Good and Right
The case of Sir Bernard Spilsbury
Ping Pong Neonatal ICU

Poems of the Head in Dynamic Relation to F M Alexander
Heather Wastie
24pp £5.50 + £1.50 p&p
Available directly from me in person or by post using PayPal

A collection of poems and photographs created during an intensive Alexander Technique course in 2006 which gives an insight into its life-changing possibilities from the perspective of a total beginner.

Here’s your final chance to see the wonderful Carpet Forest which includes some of my work. The installation was created for Kidderminster Town Hall and wowed visitors to Kidderminster Arts Festival 2013. Having visited Bristol, it now makes a final appearance at the Malvern Cube. Some of my Weaving Yarns work can be heard on mp3 players hidden amongst the trees. The installation was the brainchild of Loz Samuels, who said this about my involvement:

Having Weaving Yarns as an element of our Carpet Forest installation was a gift, and in turn gave a fantastic environment to showcase a taster of this work. The recordings … gave the public … insight into the real heart of the work. The stories and Heather’s interpretation of them sparked conversations amongst families about their connections with the carpet industry.Loz Samuels, Wyre Forest District Council Arts Officer

As the gatekeepers, the guardians of knowledge
leave their posts for ever, the Prince of Darkness*
believing he has finally claimed his prize,the place where books are incinerated, not kept,
has sent his death-eaters to hover and claw at the windows
when suddenly, up the Victorian spiral staircase,
circling up through the archive, up into the vortex rise,
not flames, but 40 years of human dust – up, up and away.

Headliner: often billed as ‘Midlands own Victoria Wood’, HEATHER WASTIE.

“Worcester SpeakEasy” is a monthly event of poetry and prose from the page and the stage (and a little music now and then), which takes place on the second Thursday of each month. The event promotes, showcases and encourages writers from the whole of Worcestershire and further afield; there is an invited headline poet each month. If you’d like to book a slot for December, please email Maggie and Fergus at speakeasy.litfest@gmail.com, or leave a message on our Facebook page.

If you haven’t got a slot and would like to take part then four, two-minute open mic slots will be available on the night: whether you are a seasoned performer or a complete novice – we want to hear from you!

The event is brought to you by your very own Worcestershire LitFest & Fringe, via Poet Laureate Emeritus Maggie Doyle and the Worcestershire Poet Laureate 2014 Fergus McGonigal, SpeakEasy’s host and MC.

Doors open at 7:00pm for a prompt 7:30pm start; we aim to be finished by about 9.45pm.

This year I’ve watched or been involved in several theatrical encounters on the streets of Worcestershire. Having seen some brilliant performances in August at Kidderminster Arts Festival (see link below) I got the performers-eye view in a KAF commission, How do wars start? with Worcestershire Poet Laureate, Fergus McGonigal.

Also in August, I was booked by Clik Clik Collective (see link below) to wander the streets of Worcester as Black Country Pat, engaging people as I saw fit, for the Worcester Music Festival. I chatted to lots of people and sang songs.

Photo: Geoff Cox

Last Friday I was with Clik Clik again at Worcester’s Victorian Fayre delivering poetry near the site of Hill Evans & Co Vinegar Works which closed in the sixties. My repertoire consisted of humorous and informative poems about vinegar I’d written specially for the occasion in a Victorian style plus pieces by little known Victorian women poets and Edward Lear.

Photo: Dave Grubb

Engaging the public at such events can be exceedingly difficult. (As you can see, I resorted to post-Victorian equipment.) People with their minds fixed on getting from A to B keep their heads down, determined not to be lured into any form of enjoyment. Is the chugger partly to blame for this? Discuss.

Here are some of the responses I got to the question, Can I read you a poem?

“I don’t like poetry. I’m not romantic.”

A man struggling to walk with a walking stick (hehe, he couldn’t escape) said he didn’t want a poem because he found it difficult to stand still, yet he stood there for ages telling me about the time he worked for Lee and Perrins.

A woman rushing by wouldn’t stop to listen because she was in pain but proceeded to tell me in great detail the different household uses for vinegar, especially cleaning the toilet.

Photo: Dave Grubb

When 3 teenage lads approached I offered, in a very posh voice, to read them a poem and they said yes please, listening with mock interest. I read a short piece by Amy Levy and one of the lads said, earnestly, that she was one of his favourite poets and agreed that it was tragic that she committed suicide at the age of 27. He asked for more poetry, so I turned to another lad and directed this to him:

I DO not love you very much,
Only your tuneful voice,
Which, in a happy moment, takes
The music of my choice.
I do not love you, dear, at all,
Only your merry ways,
Which linger in my mind, and set
Me dreaming through the days.
In truth, I think it is dislike
You kindle in my heart,
Because you come so joyously
To steal so large a part.

Dollie Radford

He listened intently. “So you love me then”, he said when I’d finished. I walked away, “blushing”. Then the Anti Barber lured him into his chair and drew a moustache which made him look like Lionel Richie and broke into anachronistic song to uproarious laughter. Later I gave a spoken rendition of The Lost Chord by Adelaide Anne Procter to improvised piano accompaniment by a fellow Clik Clik entertainer called Dan. Is it mad? Is it art? Does it matter? Who had the most fun?